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Sir George Edward Raven Deacon FRS was a British oceanographer and chemist.
He was born in Leicester, the son of George Raven and Emma Deacon and educated at the Newarke school, Leicester. He went as a King's scholar to King's College London where he was awarded a first-class honours degree in chemistry in 1926 and a diploma of education in 1927.
His first post was as lecturer in chemistry and mathematics at Rochdale Technical School. In 1927 he was offered a place as a chemist on the Discovery Antarctic survey and sailed on Christmas Eve on the RRS William Scoresby, transferring in 1928 to the larger Discovery II. In 1937 he was awarded a Doctor of Science for the work by the University of London.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1944. His application citation read: "Since 1927 he has taken physical observations from HM Research Ship "Discovery II" and other vessels in all sections of the Antarctic Ocean, and has analysed and studied these observations. In particular he has described the movements, horizontal and vertical, of the water between the Antarctic Continent and the northern limits of the Southern Ocean, defining Antarctic and Sub-Antarctic areas which are proving significant in the study of the distribution of plankton and of free-swimming and bottom-living animals. He has shown that practically all the bottom water of the Antarctic origin in all the oceans is formed in the Weddell Sea."
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